What AI Can & Can't do
As of early September, there were 34 vaccine candidates being tested in humans, according to the?World Health Organization (WHO). Another 145 candidates were being tested in animals or in the lab, says WHO, which keeps?a running worldwide list. Those are astonishing numbers, considering that less than a year ago no one had heard of the novel coronavirus, now known as?SARS-CoV-2, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19. It typically takes many years, or even decades, to develop a vaccine; until now, the speed record was held by the?mumps vaccine, which went from a collected sample to a marketed product in about four years.
It's no wonder that research is sprinting ahead. Our societies and economies likely won't return to normal until a highly effective vaccine has been administered to a substantial portion of the planet's population. The search for a vaccine is now a vast undertaking, involving thousands of researchers at hundreds of laboratories around the world spending billions of dollars. It's like a moon shot in its magnitude, ambition, and intensity.